


Bright College Days

by richmahogany



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: College, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-04
Updated: 2016-01-13
Packaged: 2018-05-11 18:23:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5637142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/richmahogany/pseuds/richmahogany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nathan Ingram knows that MIT has a reputation for being Nerd Central, but all the same he is sure that he will meet interesting people and discover lots of possibilities for having fun. However, he is stuck with a roommate who at first appears to be not only the stereotypical geek, but is also silent, secretive and strangely impervious to Nathan’s charm. So Nathan sets himself a challenge: by Christmas he will either have found a meaningful connection to this guy, or he will ask for a new roommate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Meet R. Harold Wren

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, it's another "Harold and Nathan meet at college" fic. I know there are a few of them about, but I fancied writing my own. Please note that my headcanon follows the old timeline as suggested in Season 1, which puts Harold's freshman year at MIT as 1976, not the later timeline from Season 3, which has him still at home in 1979. Title taken from the Tom Lehrer song, which has nothing to do with the story. It just conveniently had the word "college" in the title.

Finally his parents had left, he had waved them good-bye and returned to the room that was to be his home for the next year. Nathan Ingram took a deep breath. This was the moment he had been waiting for: to be independent, to do his own thing, and, above all, to have escaped the unceasing vigilance of his parents. He looked around. The room held two beds with nightstands, two desks with chairs, two chests of drawers and a single closet. Nathan’s things were spread over one bed, nightstand and desk, plus a few boxes sitting on the floor. He now faced the task of finding a place for everything. His roommate was nowhere to be seen, but he had left his stuff on the other bed. He hadn’t brought much. There was a small suitcase, probably holding clothes, a cardboard box full of books and another box of what looked like electronics. That was it. Nathan wondered what his roommate would be like. Hopefully someone he could get along with, maybe even be friends. Outside crowds of students were milling about, pushing past the stalls that the various fraternities, clubs and societies had set up. Nathan longed to go and see what he could possibly join, but he decided to be sensible and tidy his things away first. With a sigh he opened one of his suitcases. He was concentrating on pairing up his socks and was so absorbed in his task that he was quite startled when a quiet voice behind him said:  
“Hello.”  
He turned round and for the first time set eyes on his roommate - a scrawny little guy with thick glasses, a big nose and mad professor hair. Nathan held out his hand and smiled.  
“Hi, I’m Nathan Ingram.”  
The other boy looked at him, his eye contact lasting only for a fraction of a second. But when he took Nathan’s hand, his grip was assured.  
“Harold Wren,” he said in the same quiet voice as before.  
“Hey, nice to meet you. What’s your major?”  
“Computer science.”  
“Great, we’ll have some classes together then. My major is business management, but I’ll be taking some computer science classes, too.”  
“That’s an unusual combination.”  
“Well, I’m an unusual guy!”  
Nathan laughed to indicate that he didn’t mean to show off. Harold didn’t laugh. He just continued to not-quite-look at Nathan. Then he turned round and started to take his books out of the box and put them onto the shelf above his bed.  
Nathan shrugged and turned back to his own stuff. Obviously this guy needed a bit more effort, but Nathan was nothing if not good at making friends. He wasn’t discouraged in the least, so after a while he said to Harold:  
“I’ve had enough of this. Do you want to have a look at the campus, see what’s going on?”  
Harold seemed to think about that for a moment, then he nodded and followed Nathan outside.  
They mingled with the crowds, looking at this stall and that. Nathan tried to get some sort of conversation going, but Harold didn’t say anything except “hmm” and “yes”. Eventually Nathan spotted the stall of the basketball team and got talking to the guys. When he remembered to look round for Harold, his roommate had disappeared. Nathan walked on, talking to a few other people here and there, and making a slow tour of the campus. He wasn’t actively looking for Harold, but after a while he spotted him sitting under a tree as far away from the crowds as possible. He decided not to disturb him for now. Harold was probably one of those shy loner types, who wouldn’t be forced to come out of his shell. There was plenty of time to get to know him.  
In the next few weeks, however, Nathan learned next to nothing about his roommate. Any questions about him would only elicit curt and evasive answers. What Nathan had learned was that Harold’s parents were dead, that he came from “nowhere, really” (he took that to mean that Harold’s family had moved around a lot) and that he had come to MIT on a scholarship. He earned a bit of extra money by working a few hours a week in the library of the law faculty. How a computer science major had obtained a job in a law library remained unexplained.  
Harold was by no means an unpleasant roommate. Most of the time, he wasn’t even there. He went to his classes, worked at the law library, or sat in another library doing his coursework. Most of Nathan’s time was taken up with his business classes, and Harold was taking additional classes in physics, math and electrical engineering. But they both took the introduction to computer science and a class on computer languages and programming. Only a few times Nathan had managed to sit next to Harold. Harold was busily taking notes throughout the lecture, but when Nathan got a glimpse of what he wrote, it bore no relation to what the professor was saying.  
Nathan didn’t quite know what to make of him. He was disposed to like Harold, but there was definitely something strange about him. Harold had gotten a bit better at talking to him, and although he rarely showed himself in the communal areas of the dorm, he sometimes had to interact with other students as well. Harold was never rude or unfriendly, but he remained distant and closed. He said all the right things whenever he was forced to have a conversation, but Nathan had noticed that there always seemed to be a slight delay before he said something. It was almost as if Harold had to process the input and then call up the appropriate program before he could react. It had occurred to Nathan more than once that maybe Harold Wren should have an R. in front of his name. He couldn’t explain why, but despite all that something told him that Harold was a guy worth getting to know. Nathan wasn’t going to give up on his project of chipping away at his roommate’s defences just yet.  
One evening when Harold was at his library job, Nathan resorted to snooping to find out a bit more. He wasn’t going to look for a secret diary or anything really private, but he was sure that by looking at people’s stuff, you could find out something about the people themselves. Harold’s possessions seemed to consist mainly of books, so Nathan looked first at Harold’s nightstand to see what his roommate has chosen to have close at hand. That’s when he got his first surprise. He had pegged Harold as the typical nerd who was interested in computers and math, but not much beyond that except maybe science fiction and geeky pursuits like chess. The first book he picked up from Harold’s nightstand, however, was “The Happy Prince and other stories” by Oscar Wilde. Well, that was unexpected! There was a second book which likewise he would never have guessed at: collected poems by Robert Frost.  
Nathan moved on to the shelf above Harold’s bed, which held most of his books. The first thing he saw was Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy. There were also writings by Alonzo Church and John von Neumann, whose names had been mentioned in the computer science intro class. These were not digests aimed at college freshmen, however, but the scientists’ original papers. Even so, this was more in line with what he had expected. The next few volumes held more surprises. There were three novels by Charles Dickens (two of which he had never heard of), “Mansfield Park” by Jane Austen, more poetry (“Paradise Lost” – this guy must have loved his English Lit classes at school!), the Feynman Lectures on Physics, “Alice in Wonderland”, a fat volume with the mystifying title “Gödel, Escher, Bach”, and lastly a bird guide. Clearly there was more to Harold than just computer geekery. Nathan moved on to Harold’s desk, where more books were piled up. These were mostly library books, some related to the classes they were both taking, some to Harold’s other subjects, and some about computer science which appeared to be far too advanced for freshman year. In addition Harold had poached in a number of other libraries as well. Nathan could see textbooks on psychology, sociology, law, and even music. This didn’t help him at all in trying to pin Harold down. He had never met anyone whose interests were so wide-ranging. He had to laugh when the thought occurred to him that if Harold really was a robot, this is what he would read to teach himself how to be human. Maybe that’s exactly what Harold was doing. Who knew?  
Nathan flopped down on his own bed and grabbed the thriller he had on the go. He had enough of thinking about Harold for the moment. He felt annoyed that Harold was so secretive, but if that’s how he wanted to be – well, Nathan didn’t depend on his friendship. He had already found plenty of other friends, he didn’t need Harold.  
Harold stayed away until very late that evening, whereas Nathan went to bed early. He must have been already asleep when Harold returned to their room, because when Nathan woke up during the night, Harold was in his bed. Nathan got up and quietly crept across the room to look at Harold. He remembered an article he had read once about how your sleeping posture revealed your personality. These positions had names like “the pharaoh”, where you would lie straight on your back like a king in his tomb. This supposedly meant that you had a confident and commanding personality. Or “the starfish”, with all limbs sprawling, which indicated that you were open and outgoing. He hadn’t really taken the article seriously, but just for fun he thought he’d try it out on his roommate. Harold had turned his face to the wall and curled up tightly. In addition he had wrapped the comforter around himself so that basically only his hair was sticking out at the top. If Nathan had to give this posture a name, it would have to be “the armadillo”. All his vulnerable parts were protected, and he gave nothing away. Maybe that article wasn’t such nonsense after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In some of Asimov's fiction, robots have become to sophisticated that they are almost indistinguishable from humans and are therefore required to have an R. in front of their names, to make their robotic nature clear.  
> I have set this story in 1976, but I have permitted myself a small anachronism: Douglas Hofstadter's "Goedel, Escher, Bach" came out in 1979.


	2. A Night at the Opera

Nathan then conceived of a new way of drawing Harold out a bit: asking him for help with his coursework. Most of the time, Nathan did not find his computer science classes too difficult. But there were often details that eluded him, or concepts that he thought he’d understood, but when it came to doing the problem sets, he realized that he hadn’t. So what was more natural than to ask your roommate, who spoke computer like a native, for help? Harold was surprisingly ready to help Nathan out. Maybe it appealed to his vanity that someone needed his superior skills, but Nathan got the impression that Harold was simply so enamoured of his subject that he wanted to make everyone see what he was seeing. He was not a natural teacher, but Nathan was surprised at the effort he put into finding an explanation that worked for him, even though it took several attempts, trying out different wordings or approaching the problem from a different angle. He never gave up until Nathan truly “got it”. It revealed to Nathan yet another side to his roommate’s character that he hadn’t expected. In the course of these sessions Harold gradually seemed to relax a bit in Nathan’s presence. A few times he even laughed at Nathan’s jokes, and Nathan knew he was really getting somewhere when Harold made a little joke of his own.  
One day Nathan came into their room with a letter. He let himself fall onto his bed and said to Harold:  
“I have news: my godfather’s in town.”  
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”  
“No, he’s a great guy. But he always says that my education isn’t well-rounded enough and drags me to the most boring museums and the opera and so on. And this time you’re in for it as well. Listen to this: ‘I happen to have an extra ticket for the opera, so bring your girlfriend, or boyfriend, or, failing those options, your roommate.’ So there you are. It’s on Saturday, so you can mentally prepare yourself. Have you ever been to the opera?”  
“No.”  
“Lucky you. At least he’s taking us out for a meal beforehand. He’s stinking rich, you know, so we always go to some really nice restaurant, so that’s something to look forward to.”  
Harold looked thoughtful for a moment.  
“I’ll have to get a suit,” he said, more to himself than to Nathan.  
“That you do,” Nathan confirmed. He had brought a couple of suits with him from home, just in case any formal situations arose. An expensive restaurant and the opera certainly counted as such. Besides, his godfather was always immaculately attired, and Nathan did not want to be underdressed in his company.  
Saturday came around, and the boys decided to get ready in good time to go downtown. Nathan didn’t want to be late meeting his godfather, who was a stickler for good manners. But when he put on his dress shirt, to his dismay he saw that it was awfully wrinkled. He hadn’t thought of that!  
“You’re not going to make much of an impression with that,” Harold pointed out unhelpfully.  
“I know, but what am I gonna do?”  
“Iron it.”  
“ ‘Iron it’ he says, just like that! And how? There’s no ironing board. And anyway, I can’t iron.”  
Harold rolled his eyes, got up and opened the closet.  
“You don’t need an ironing board,” he said, reaching somewhere behind his underwear. “Get a big towel and spread it on your desk. I’ll show you how.”  
Nathan did as he was told and watched as Harold plugged in a small travel iron and spread the shirt on top of the towel.  
“How do you know how to iron? I mean, this is women’s stuff.”  
“I like to think that I display the good old American virtue of self-reliance.”  
“What?”  
“Emerson.”  
“Who?”  
“Never mind. Do you want to know how to do this or not?”  
“Yes. Sorry.”  
Harold proceeded to iron the shirt, accompanying his actions with explanations. First he ironed the cuffs and the collar, then the right front, the back, the left front, and finally the sleeves. When handed the garment over, much improved in appearance, Nathan couldn’t help but be impressed.   
“Thanks,” he said, “that’s brilliant!” Before he could put the shirt on though, Harold handed him another one.  
“Not so fast. Let’s see if you paid attention. I’m not going to do this for you every time you need to look smart. You can do mine for me. I’ll help you.”  
Nathan groaned, but when he had finished his task, not without burning the tip of his little finger and much cursing, he was quite pleased with himself.  
They had to put their suits on in a hurry, but the results would probably pass muster under the scrutiny of Nathan’s godfather. This was the first glimpse Nathan got of Harold’s suit, and he was quite impressed. Harold didn’t have much money and had likely gotten it from a thrift store, and it was rather out of fashion. But he had clearly taken the time to search until he found a suit that really fit him. It was a brown suit with pinstripes, and the sleeves were maybe a fraction too long, but the pants fit perfectly. Nathan would never have thought that a brown suit could make anyone look so – well, nothing would ever make Harold actually good-looking, but he was quite elegant.  
His godfather, too, didn’t seem to find anything amiss when they met in front of the restaurant.   
He greeted his godson with a hug, which embarrassed Nathan slightly, and then shook hands with Harold and introduced himself. His name was Leo, which was short for Leopold, as he explained: his parents had been immigrants from Austria. As Nathan had predicted, the restaurant was a very upscale establishment. Nathan was somewhat used to such an environment, but Harold probably wasn’t. Leo however was very skilled at putting him at ease. Soon they had ordered, and Leo proceeded to draw Harold out by asking him about his studies, his interests, his hopes for the future. Nathan could only sit back and watch in admiration as Harold talked more in half an hour than he had in the last few weeks put together. Leo knew nothing about computers, but he was very attentive as Harold explained what they were all about, and how he thought that computers would shape the future. Nathan, too, listened with interest. He had his own opinions about the role computers would play in years to come, and he found that they were very similar to Harold’s thoughts. That was definitely something he would have to talk about with Harold.  
After the meal Harold excused himself for a few minutes, and Leo turned to his godson:  
“I like your friend,” he said, “very interesting young man. You’d do well in gaining his friendship.”  
“Probably,” said Nathan, “how would I know, though? He never says anything. Not until now anyway.”  
“Still waters run deep. I don’t know if that boy is going to save the world or destroy it, but mark my words: he is destined for great things.”  
Nathan laughed. His godfather was given to grandiose statements, but he had to admit that he himself thought that Harold was someone worth getting to know. That’s why he persisted with his efforts to get behind Harold’s defences.  
They had very good seats at the opera, with a perfect view of the stage, and high enough to allow them a glimpse of the orchestra pit. As the lights dimmed and the orchestra struck up the overture to Puccini’s “Madame Butterfly”, Nathan leant back into the plush velvet with a sigh. It was going to be a long night, but at least he would be comfortable.  
The curtain rose, and the first act began. Nathan turned to steal a glance at his roommate to see if he was as bored as he was. Harold however was completely entranced. He sat forward in his seat and appeared to be blind and deaf to anything except what was going on onstage.  
During the interval Harold was still slightly dazed. When Leo asked him if he was enjoying the performance, he answered “oh yes”, but had otherwise slipped back into his silent ways. Leo smiled knowingly. Nathan had told him that Harold hadn’t been to the opera before, and he could well remember the effect his first visit had had on him, even though he was only five at the time.  
After the performance Leo drove the boys back to the campus before taking his leave, saying to Harold: “I hope you will join us again next time”.   
A week later Nathan noticed that a record of Puccini arias had appeared amongst Harold’s possessions. Fortunately their dorm room did not feature a record player.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Harold is of course referring to the essay "Self-Reliance" by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Just in case you were wondering.  
> If you want to learn how to iron a dress shirt, I recommend the instructions you can find on the Art of Manliness website. They are quite easy to follow. Still not much fun, though.


	3. Knight in shining...glasses?

Nathan was sitting with Harold in the student cafeteria and tried not to stare as a stunning black girl with short hair and an eye-popping turquoise top squeezed past behind Harold’s chair. He couldn’t help staring, though, when the girl tapped his roommate’s shoulder and said:

“Hello, Harold.”

Harold turned round.

“Oh, hello… Marion, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” replied the girl. “I just wanted to say thank you for your help the other day.”

“Oh, no problem. How is your essay coming on?”

“Not bad, thank you. I had to get another book from the law library, but thanks to you I had no problem finding it. You know, I thought at first it was quite unnecessary that you explained the whole shelfmark system to me,” she said with a laugh, “but you were right: it’s really easy to find what you need once you know how it works, and you don’t have to ask anyone for help. So, thanks for that.”

“Glad I could help,” said Harold, as Marion gave him a little wave and moved on.

“So that’s how you do it,” Nathan said quietly. “Impress them by lecturing on the finer points of book cataloguing. I must remember that.”

Harold stared at him.

“No! It’s not like that! She just…”

“Come on, Harold, who is she?”

“She’s a sociology major, if you must know. She was looking for a book on family law for her coursework, and I helped her find it. The system at the law library is a bit confusing, in fact it came about as a merger of two different systems, and now…”

“Yeah, I don’t really want to know this, Harold. But I’m surprised to see it works for the girls…”

Harold fell silent, but he looked rather annoyed with Nathan.  
Nathan took pity and stopped teasing him, but a few days later something happened that made him reconsider his roommate’s relationship with the female sex.  
They were walking across the campus when a pretty blonde in a red turtleneck hailed them from a distance:

“Hey Harold!”

Harold, who had been deep in thought, looked up a bit startled and called back:

“Hello Emily!”

“Don’t forget tonight!” Emily shouted.

“I won’t!” Harold answered and walked on.

“Wow!” said Nathan, “I didn’t know you had it in you!”

“Had what in me?”“You’ve got a date! Who is she? Is she your girlfriend? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“That’s Emily,” said Harold, as if that explained everything.

“Yeah, and?”

“She’s not my girlfriend, and it’s not a date.” Harold had obviously seen the need for further elaboration “She’s one of Professor Pilcher’s grad students. They’ve got a project group working on encryption algorithms, and they asked me to join. We’re working on a paper we hope to get published, and that’s why we are meeting tonight.”

“Wait – what? You’re working with grad students? You are publishing a paper? Harold, it’s your freshman year! You only got here a few weeks ago. How did you do that?”

“Well, they asked me,” Harold said a bit sheepishly. “I accidentally left some notes in the coursework I handed in, and Professor Pilcher seemed to think it was interesting and invited me to join his group. And anyway, it won’t get published until next year, if it gets published at all, so…”

He shrugged and fell silent.  
Nathan shook his head. He had already begun to suspect that Harold was way ahead of everybody else in their year, given that he paid no attention in class but still received top marks for his coursework. But that he was working with graduate students as their equal was something he’d never have guessed. One more reason, he thought, to seek Harold’s friendship. It should have been annoying, to be so easily outclassed by your socially inept roommate, but Nathan really liked Harold and was ready to see the positive sides of having such a brilliant friend. Besides, Harold was hardly the type to rub it in. On the contrary, he had done his best to hide his talents from everyone. He clearly cared nothing for public recognition of his genius.

Accordingly Nathan continued with his efforts to get closer to his roommate, with some success. A high point was reached when Harold agreed to accompany Nathan to a party. One of Nathan’s basketball teammates was celebrating his birthday at the house which he shared with a few other young men off-campus.  
While Harold had consented to come to the party, he had not promised to join in the fun. Rather he lurked in the corners, watching everyone else, and clutching a beaker from which he pretended to drink now and then. Nathan considered it progress of some sort and left Harold to it while he amused himself dancing, smoking, drinking and trying to charm one of the pretty girls. Unfortunately none of the girls wanted to do anything other than talk, and after a couple of hours Nathan started to get bored. He looked around for Harold, but couldn’t see him anywhere. He needed the bathroom first anyway. When he made his way upstairs, he met Harold on the landing.

“Oh, there you are,” he said, “I was…”

But Harold wasn’t listening. Instead he had turned his attention to one of the closed doors, behind which muffled voices could be heard. Nathan couldn’t make out what was said, but after listening for a moment, Harold resolutely marched up to the door and flung it open. The room was a bedroom, and on the bed were a young man and a girl who didn’t look older than fifteen. Her blouse was unbuttoned, but she squirmed, trying to get away from the man. The guy had obviously not noticed that they were no longer unobserved. He pulled the girl back onto the bed and tried to throw his arm around her. She cried and said: “No, please don’t!”, but he ignored her.

“She said ‘no’,” Harold said now, and finally the guy realized that they were no longer alone. He stared at Harold.

“What?”

“She said ‘no’,” Harold repeated. “You should leave her be.”

The guy laughed.

“Oh come on, everybody knows they don’t mean that.”

“They?”

“Women, you idiot. They say ‘no’, but they mean ‘maybe’. And ‘maybe’ means ‘yes’, so…”

He laughed again. The girl continued to sob.

Harold seemed to think for a moment.

“And what does ‘yes’ mean then?” he said.

“ ‘Yes’ means ‘yes’, hehe!”

Harold considered that. Then he pronounced:

“That’s illogical.”

Despite the tension Nathan almost laughed out loud. Harold’s tone had been such an exact imitation of Mr Spock’s calm superiority that it was uncanny. He wondered if Harold had done that on purpose. He suspected not.

The guy on the bed had clearly not expected that reaction either. Nathan now sprang into action and took advantage of the moment of confusion. He grabbed the girl’s hand, pulled her off the bed and let her escape into the hall. But Harold wasn’t finished. Gathering steam now, he continued:

“I realize that you are somewhat intoxicated and may not be able to process the spoken word, but even then her body language should have made it perfectly clear that she meant ‘no’.”

It now dawned on the guy that things were not going his way. The girl had disappeared and he was being made fun of by some four-eyed creep in front of several people who formed a little knot of onlookers at the door. He got off the bed and took a step forward. Harold took a corresponding step backwards but otherwise stood his ground.

“It’s none of your business, anyway,” the guy now said angrily.

“If you are forcing yourself on someone who clearly doesn’t want it, I think it becomes my business.”

“Oh yeah? You wanna make this your business, too?”

And he threw a punch at Harold. It was a clumsy move and well telegraphed, but it took Harold completely by surprise. The guy’s fist collided with his nose and knocked him to the floor. His glasses flew off, and when he sat up and gingerly examined his face, his hands came away bloody. But now the spectators had started intervene. Some of them pushed the guy back onto the bed and closed the door, while Nathan picked up first Harold’s glasses, then Harold himself, and took him downstairs and outside. He made Harold sit down on the stoop and went inside again to call a cab. While they were waiting, Harold tried to stem the blood flowing from his nose first with his handkerchief, then with his shirt. By the time the cab arrived, the worst seemed to be over. His nose looked red and swollen, but there was only the odd drop trickling from it now. They both sat in the back of the cab, and Nathan cast worried glances at his roommate.

“You alright?” he asked.

Harold nodded.

“Is it broken?”

Harold shook his head, then winced and sat very still.

“You…”

But Harold interrupted him.

“Don’t,” he mumbled. “I know I’ve been stupid, I don’t need you to point that out.”

“That’s not what I was going to say. I just didn’t think you were the type to play the hero.”

“I didn’t mean to play the hero,” Harold said quietly but obviously annoyed.

“I just didn’t expect it, that’s all. You did the right thing, which most people wouldn’t have. Why did you do it?”

Harold took a while to answer. Eventually he mumbled:

“Taking advantage of someone else who is weaker and can’t defend themselves…it’s just wrong. I know it happens all the time, that’s what the world is like, but it shouldn’t be. I can’t stand it. It’s wrong.”

He fell silent as if he didn’t know how else to explain himself.

He’s probably speaking from experience, Nathan thought. He only had to think back to his own schooldays to see that Harold would be exactly the type of kid who gets picked on. It spoke to Harold’s strength of character that it hadn’t caused him to lash out at the world in general, but to channel his anger into defending others in the same situation. It proved that for all his distance and self-imposed isolation, he cared about other people.

“Listen,” said Nathan, “I don’t think you’ve been stupid at all. I think you did something admirable, and you should be proud of yourself.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, seriously. You _are_ a hero, Harold.”

Harold shook his head, but Nathan noted that he no longer looked annoyed.


	4. Harold's little secret

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "I was never seventeen," says Harold in one of LindaO's fics. Here's why.

The year was drawing to a close, but the students’ days were more packed with events and parties than ever. After the unfortunate end of their last outing, Nathan was surprised when Harold agreed to go somewhere with him again, this time to a basketball game. MIT’s first team was playing another university, and Nathan, who was on the second team and therefore not playing, went along to cheer his teammates on. He and Harold were going in Nathan’s car this time. On the way Nathan tested a theory he had about how to capture Harold’s interest, and he was proven right: numbers and statistics were the way to his heart. Nathan kept him entertained with a run-down of the team’s history, past successes, the form of individual players etc. By the time they arrived, Harold was actually looking forward to the game. He even joined in the cheering, if in a quiet sort of way.

It was after the game when the audience was filing towards the exits that a misfortune befell Nathan this time. Somewhere behind him someone had stumbled or else pushed deliberately. Either way, the result was a domino effect, which knocked Nathan to the ground with several people piling on top of him. He picked himself up and thought that nothing was wrong, but when he tried to take a step, a sharp pain was shooting through his foot. He must have twisted his ankle. By letting Harold take most of his weight, Nathan made it to the car, but he was doubtful if he would be able to drive, so he suggested:

“I think you’d better drive, Harold.”

He’d vaguely noticed the worried expression on Harold’s face, but he didn’t properly realize that something was wrong until they were both in the car and he saw Harold sitting motionless in the driver’s seat.

“What’s up, Harold? Don’t think I should trust my car to you?”

“No,” said Harold, “I…I can’t drive.”

“Nonsense, you’ve got a driving license, I’ve seen it! What are you talking about?”

“There was no time. I got the license, but there was no time to learn how to drive.”

“Harold, you’re not making any sense. How can you get a license without learning to drive? Or…wait. You didn’t…it’s a fake??”

Harold nodded.

“But why? What do you need a fake license for? Harold, what’s going on?”

“Nathan, please, I can’t explain, I just…”

“Oh, you can explain, and you will! I want to know what’s going on. Let’s go home first, though. Come on, swap over, I think I can manage.”

They drove all the way back in silence. Harold was apparently trying to shrink into the upholstery. Nathan had to concentrate on his driving, but in between his thoughts were revolving around what Harold had said. He wasn’t so much shocked that someone had a fake driving license. He knew it could come in handy in a number of ways if you could make yourself older that you really were (which was usually what such forgeries were for). It was just that Harold didn’t do any of the things you’d normally do with a fake driving license. He didn’t go out on the town and try to get into seedy establishments, he didn’t try to buy alcohol – he didn’t do anything except study, work and read. So why did he have a false identity? What was Harold hiding from him? And how much of the Harold he had come to know was actually real?

Back in their room, Nathan flopped down on his bed, rolled over to reach underneath and came up with two bottles of beer. He opened both and handed one to Harold.

“I don’t like beer,” Harold said.

“Pretend you do,” Nathan replied rather harshly. “Now talk to me: what’s going on with you?”

“I…I don’t know what to say.”

“Show me that license again.”

And when Harold had handed it over:

“Harold Wren. Is that even your real name?”

“It is now.”

“OK, so your name is fake as well. Is anything about you real? Who are you? A criminal on the run? In witness protection? I just don’t know what to think anymore.”

Harold was breathing hard, trying to steel himself for what had to be done. Finally he said:

“When my parents were…gone, it was probably expected that my relatives would take me in until I was eighteen. But I was never close to any of them. I barely knew them. I knew what I wanted to do, so I just…did it a bit earlier. The driving license was easiest type of identification to fake, and so I just made myself old enough that nobody would ask any questions when I came here. But like I said, I didn’t have the time to really learn how to drive.”

Nathan looked at the license again.

“This says you’re eighteen. So how old are you really?”

Harold mumbled something inaudible.

“Harold…”

“Sixteen.”

“Sixteen. Right. So you didn’t even graduate highschool. How the hell did you get into MIT? You need pretty good SAT scores for that. And they don’t give out scholarships at the mall either. Did you fake those as well?”

“No, those scores are real. I really did take the test. I pretended I was homeschooled, so they wouldn’t ask for any school paperwork. And the results were good enough to get me here, so…”

Harold shrugged. Nathan took a long draught from his beer bottle and sat thinking for a while. Harold didn’t drink, but like in the car he seemed to try to make himself invisible. Nathan shook his head.

“I just don’t know what to believe anymore. I thought I knew you – well, I thought I was getting to know you. And I thought that you were…I thought you wanted to be friends as well. But now I can’t help thinking, was that fake as well? Anything you did, anything you said, how real was any of that? And how can I trust you in the future? How can I know who’s the real Harold? Help me out here, because I don’t know what to do.”

“I’m not sure I can help you,” Harold said so quietly that Nathan could barely hear him. “I told you what I did, and I told you my reasons. I’ve told you the truth. There’s nothing more I can say. There is no real or unreal Harold. There is only me. Now it’s up to you to decide whether you believe me or not.”

“Yes, “said Nathan, “I guess it is.”

He drained his bottle, put it on the floor and got up.

“I’m going to bed.”

And that was the last thing he said to Harold for the next few days. Harold was even more invisible than usual, coming into their dorm room only to sleep. He didn’t try to talk to Nathan at all. He hadn’t even asked him to keep his secret to himself. It seemed that he was leaving it up to Nathan whether he was going to betray him or not. Nathan on his part was still trying to get over what happened. He was the one who felt betrayed. Harold had lied to him, had portrayed himself as someone he was not, and Nathan was bitterly disappointed. He had come to like and admire Harold, but the picture he had made of him in his mind had shattered. What had looked like the beginning of friendship had turned into something else. He would have to look for a new roommate after all.


	5. In the beginning

It was the last day of term, and the Christmas party at the dorm was in full swing. Nathan usually loved parties, but today he couldn’t really get into the mood. The truth was, he missed Harold. Not that Harold was an essential requirement at parties, in fact it would not have made any difference to the party at all if he was there or not. But it made a difference to Nathan. He hadn’t spoken at all to Harold in the past few days, and at first he hadn’t wanted to. But the more he thought about what Harold had said, the more he wondered if maybe he had overreacted a bit. Because what was it that Harold had actually done? He had made himself a bit older on paper, so he could follow his chosen path in life. The fact that he had given himself a new name in the process was probably just to make it a bit easier. He had given very good reasons for what he did. He had made a plan for his life, and he didn’t want to be stuck with people he didn’t know, in an unfamiliar place, for two years until he was old enough to leave. Many boys in his situation would probably have liked to escape. It was just that most weren’t as resourceful as Harold and actually managed to do it. Nathan couldn’t help admiring Harold a bit as well. To successfully reinvent yourself, and to convince others that your new identity was the real thing – that took some skill and courage. And Harold was right when he pointed out that he hadn’t gained his place at MIT by cheating – or even if he had, it was plain to see that he belonged here, given how quickly he had established himself as the best student in their year. All in all, Nathan was prepared to believe that not everything Harold had told him was a lie, and he even forgave him that he had kept his secret to himself. He wasn’t looking for the kind of friendship where you told each other everything. He wanted a friend he could rely on, a friend who thought in similar ways, who understood him, and whom he could trust. And despite everything, he had finally decided that Harold was such a person. He just had to convince Harold now that their friendship wasn’t over. But to do that, he had to find him first.

Harold didn’t seem to be anywhere in the dorm. There were a few likely places where he could be, but Nathan eventually turned him up in the law library, hiding behind a volume of “The Law of Torts (Second Restatement)”. He looked up warily as Nathan sat down at his desk, but didn’t say anything. Nathan didn’t quite know where to begin either. Eventually he simply said:

“I believe you.”

Harold’s expression barely changed, but Nathan could have sworn that he heard a little sigh of relief.

“You do?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t think I’m lying to you?”

“Not where it counts, no.”

“Because I’m not.”

“I know.”

They both fell silent. Then Nathan started again:

“I came to find you because I was hoping that you’d still want to be my friend. So what do you say? Are we friends?”

He held out his hand and hoped that Harold would take it. This was it, the moment which would decide the future. He could feel the tension built. And then, for the first time since he’d met him, Harold looked him in the eye and held his gaze, took his hand and said:

“Yes, we’re friends.”

All of a sudden, Nathan felt giddy with happiness. He wouldn’t have been able to explain why Harold’s friendship was so important to him, but he had wanted it so much, and now he had it. He almost laughed with pleasure, but Harold still looked so serious that he suppressed that impulse. Instead he said:

“Won’t you come back to the dorm with me? You’re not working, are you? There’s no need to hide away!”

“I don’t really like parties, you know that.”

“Just come back to our room with me then. I’ve got something to drink. Come on!”

Harold didn’t look too happy about it, but he got up, put the book back on the shelf, and followed Nathan back to their room. They dodged most of the celebrations going on all over the building and closed the door behind them. While Harold made himself comfortable on the bed, Nathan rummaged in the closet and retrieved a bottle.

“Scotch!” he said, waving it at Harold. “I liberated this from my father’s stash. Maybe this will be more to your taste than beer.”

He handed Harold the bottle and darted from the room, returning with two paper cups. He filled each with a generous measure and drank from his, looking encouragingly at Harold. Harold looked at his cup, sniffed the beverage dubiously and finally took a tiny sip. But he looked pleasantly surprised.

“Yes,” he admitted, “better than beer.”

“Good.”

Nathan smiled and drank some more of his. For a while they sat together in companionable silence, drinking now and then from their cups, which Nathan soon refilled. But after a while Nathan, who hadn’t been entirely sober to start with, began to feel the effects of the whisky, and they made him talkative.

“You know,” he said to Harold, “the reason that it was so important to me that we are friends is that there are some things that only you will understand, I think.”

Harold turned to him in surprise but continued to listen.

“I wasn’t really interested in computers until a couple years ago or so,” Nathan continued. “I thought they were just big machines that did calculations for big businesses, or something universities had in their labs for their computer scientists, but it didn’t have anything to do with me. There were some kids at school who were into that sort of thing, but I could never see the point. I didn’t think computers would ever have anything to do with my life. But then a friend of my dad’s was visiting us, and he knew about computers. He worked with them, but what’s more, he had some very exciting ideas about them.”

Nathan sat up, the better to look at Harold. This was something he had wanted to talk about for some time, and he was sure that Harold would be the only one to really listen. He leant forward to make his point.

“You know what most people think about computers, that they are just something, like I said, for big businesses for number crunching, or for research labs. They are big and expensive, and not something a private person will ever own or use. Except maybe some computer geeks who build their own – you probably did that, didn’t you? Isn’t that what that box of electronic bits is about that you keep under the bed?”

Harold nodded, but didn’t say anything. His face showed, though, that he was listening intently.

“Here’s the thing, though. This is what my dad’s friend said: computers are going to be like cars. They will get smaller, faster, cheaper, and everybody will have one. They’re going to be part of everybody’s life, they’ll be everywhere. Most people can’t imagine this now, but that’s because they only think of computers as they are now. But they’re going to change. When the first cars came out, they were just a curiosity, and nobody thought that they would be mass-produced and that they would be so common that nobody even thought about them. And now, every family in the country has two or three, and everybody can drive. Well, except some weirdos who can’t.”

Nathan gave Harold a playful shove. Harold held his drink up to keep it from spilling, and replied in a tone of injured dignity:

“I can drive a tractor.”

“Did you live on a farm?”

“I did at some point.”

Nathan frowned, but then decided that this was a subject which would have to be investigated another day.

“You know what I’m saying, right? You agree, don’t you? I’ve heard you talk to my godfather, you think computers are the future, don’t you?”

“Yes,” said Harold, more animated that Nathan had ever seen him, “I think you’re absolutely right. Moore’s Law, you know – computing power doubles every eighteen months. And if you think how far we’ve already come, how big and slow and limited the first computers were, it’s quite astonishing how most people don’t think to extrapolate from that into the future. There’ll be new techniques, new materials for making them even smaller, and faster, and...”

“Yes,” Nathan interrupted impatiently, “but that’s not all of it. My dad’s friend thought that the way we use them will change as well. They’re not just to help us with complicated calculations, they’ll do so much more! It’s already started – think about communication, for instance. There are already networks of computers, which are connected to each other and do things together and transmit information, like – you’ve heard of the ARPANET, haven’t you?”

“Oh, yes,” said Harold, “I know what you can do with that.”

“Exactly!” exclaimed Nathan. “Now imagine everybody has their own, personal computer. And it’s connected to all the other computers. You can transmit any information you want, to anyone, in a flash. You can even work on the same thing at the same time, it’s been done already. There’ll be so much more! You think it’s possible as well, don’t you? Come on, tell me – isn’t that how you see the future?”

“Yes, I totally agree with you. In fact, I think...”

But Nathan was so fired up by his theme that as soon as he had heard Harold’s agreement, he interrupted again:

“There’ something else I wanted to talk about, Harold.”

He shuffled a bit closer to his friend and lowered his voice.

“I haven’t talked to anyone else about this, but I’m telling you now, because I want us to work together. You said that studying business and computing is an unusual combination, but it’s what I have to do. I’ve always wanted my own business, but after I heard my Dad’s friend talk about computers, I knew what that business should be. Harold, I want to build the computers of the future. So I want to learn how to make a successful business, but I also want to know what I’m selling. I don’t just want to make money by selling people stuff they don’t need, I want to sell them something that is really useful, something that’ll enhance their lives. I think new technology has to serve society and make things better. And that’s why I want to learn about the computing side as well. But I know this is going to be big! Harold, we’re not just going to be part of the future! We’re going to make the future!”

“Wait,” said Harold, “what do you mean, ‘we’?”

“This is what I’m talking about, Harold! I want you with me on this. I’m not bad at computer science, but you’re the genius. You know what’s possible, you know where things are going, where progress will be made first. You can tell me if something is a good idea or not, and what’s more, you can make it happen. Come on, Harold, what do you say?”

Harold, who had listened to Nathan’s gushing quite eagerly, was frowning now.

“I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what it is you want. You think computers are going to be the next big thing – which they are, I agree with you – so you want to get in at the ground floor, isn’t that what you business people say, and you want me to work with you to make lots of money – is that it?”

“This isn’t about the money, or not entirely anyway. Have you never noticed that whenever some new technology is invented, people start using it for selfish and harmful purposes? It’s going to be the same with computers, so we have to get in there first, don’t you see? We have to make that new technology our own and use it for good, before others come along and spoil it. I know how this sounds, but we are better and smarter than a lot of people, and we have the right motivation, so it’s up to us to shape the future – it’s practically our duty! And if we make a lot of money with it along the way, well, you wouldn’t mind being a millionaire, would you?”

“No,” said Harold thoughtfully, “I don’t think I would.”

“Harold,” said Nathan intently, putting his hand on his friend’s arm, “I don’t want to do this by myself. I want to do this with you. Not just because I need you, but because I want you. You’re my friend, you understand me. Together we’re going to be invincible! Please, Harold. I want you to be my partner in making the future. Will you say yes?”

He extended his hand towards his roommate and waited. Harold continued to stare at him with a slightly stupefied expression. It occurred to Nathan that Harold probably wasn’t used to drinking as much alcohol as he had tonight. Had he actually taken in what Nathan had said, or had this been the wrong moment to ask such an important question? Nathan waited with bated breath. Finally Harold moved. He shifted his paper cup to his left, took Nathan’s hand and said simply:

“Yes. I’m in.”

An unstoppable grin spread over Nathan’s face, and he was pleased to see a rare smile on Harold’s face as well. He bumped his paper cup against Harold’s.

“To our future!” he proclaimed and drained the cup.

“To our future,” Harold repeated, and drained his cup as well. The smile slowly faded from his face and he stared vacantly into space.

“Oh dear,” he said quietly. He put the cup down very carefully and tried to get up from the bed, but he fell back, narrowly missing Nathan’s leg.

“Oh dear,” he said again.

“Harold? What’s wrong?”

But Harold managed to push himself up fully, tottered towards the door and disappeared down the hall. Nathan listened, but there was no tell-tale crash that would indicate any major injuries. Harold returned very pale but apparently unscathed.

“I think you should lie down,” Nathan said and guided his friend to his bed.

“I think so, too,” Harold replied. He sat down and very slowly and deliberately removed his shoes. Suddenly Nathan felt the urge to visit the bathroom himself. When he came back, Harold had fallen asleep on his bed, without shoes but with his glasses still on. Nathan shook his head, pulled the glasses off and put them onto the nightstand on top of the small pile of books. Harold’s face was flushed and sweaty, and he was mumbling something in his sleep. Slowly Nathan got ready for bed himself. He was feeling quite drunk, he had to admit, but unlike Harold he was not a virgin when it came to alcohol, and his friend would definitely get worse before he got better.

Poor Harold, he thought as he switched off the lights. Tonight they had made a pact that, he hoped, would be the basis for both a long partnership and a deep friendship. But when he woke up tomorrow, Harold would probably wish that he had never met Nathan Ingram.


End file.
